I've been thinking a lot about "modern" writers and writers that have defined the western ideal of what can literature be and it doesnt cease to amaze me how circular influence can be and how when good art is made it truly lasts forever, whether being read or listened to or seen in its original form or experienced in the form of an artist that bears the mark of influence from whoever. That being said next semester I'm taking a class on Great Works of Western Literature and the books we are going to read are Ulysses by Joyce, Dante's Inferno, Cervantes's Don Quixote and Homer's Iliad. I was surprised at Joyce being there but after thinking about it a little I realized how Joyce more or less really eclipses any other writer of the 20th century, either by mere definition or by consideration of the weight of his gigantic sphere of influence.
One example, Joyce was a big influence of who can be argued is the best American writer of the last century, William Faulkner. Without Joyce's Ulysses a book like The Sound and The Fury would not have been, or maybe even As I Lay Dying (my personal favorite out of what Ive read)wouldnt have been the same. In the same vein and touching upon the topic of circularity and particularly of how magnanimous Joyce's influence is, Faulkner greatly, if single handedly (and perhaps with Borges)directly influenced the whole Latin American Boom of the 60's. Maybe that's a bit too enthusiastic, but when you think about it, Garcia-Marquez, Vargas-Llosa, Jose Donoso, Juan Carlos Onetti, and a personal favorite of mine (that perhaps isnt technically part of that list) Jorge Enrique Adoum. So how does an Irishman, inspire an American Southern, that in turn inspires a bunch of top class Latin American writers? I dont know and thats the beauty of it. One great writer is all it takes to start a beautiful chain of reaction like the one I just mentioned. Sure, all those writers write through unique creative lenses of their own, but the proto-style (if that word makes sense) is all Joyce, and the style that is thought of as Faulkner's (or that Faulkner made his)is tangible in many different literatures.
